


Ralph's Revolution

by theorangecrow



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Jericrew, Simarkus implied, violence mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 06:43:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23273929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorangecrow/pseuds/theorangecrow
Summary: Kara and Alice have made it to Jericho- but they haven't forgotten one of the androids who helped them get there. After learning of a scared, unstable android in a squat across town, Markus and a couple of the other Jericho gang head out to find him. But will they be able to get Ralph to come back with them?
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Ralph's Revolution

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic commission for @BriWeiCreative on Twitter who told me to follow my heart with this one. Thank you so much for commissioning me and I hope you like it! <3

Jericho was almost crowded now, with new arrivals nearly every day. Markus welcomed them all, doing his best to talk to each of them personally as they went to Josh and Lucy for diagnosis and treatment. Simon was working on clearing out more space in the bowels of the rusted out ship, packing away old crates and boxes into dripping storage rooms and finding more barrels to fill with wood for sustainable light sources. Raids were being conducted weekly now, with North helping to create strategies to throw off the police and get out as fast as they could with the most supplies they could carry. Many new androids, rejuvenated by the fresh reserves of thirium and spare parts, had joined the cause. Often, they found others on these excursions and it was rare to come back from a raid without at least one newly deviated android, especially when Markus was present.   
Kara, having been living in Jericho’s cargo hold for nearly a week now with Alice, knew all this. And as busy as Markus was with his newfound leadership, he made time to listen to Kara’s story.   
And so it was that Simon, North, and Markus found themselves downtown, slipping around the side of a derelict property and into a vacant lot.   
Markus’ mismatched eyes zeroed in on a splash of blue blood- long dried and invisible to the eyes of humans -on a cut corner of the metal fence before them.  
He motioned to the others, who moved closer.   
“This is it. Kara said she scraped herself on the fence here.”  
North moved forward immediately, testing the torn corner and pushing it in.   
“Let’s go then. Won’t be long before the cops send their dog here.”   
Simon slipped in after her and Markus brought up the rear, cautioning both of them.   
“We don’t know what to expect. Kara said he’s unstable and terrified.”  
North snorted. “So like every single one of us, then?”  
“Just be careful.”  
Simon sighed, carefully tugging the fence back into place behind them.   
“I wish Josh had been able to come. He’s better at diplomacy.”  
Markus’s hand found his shoulder in the darkness, squeezing gently.  
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re more of a comfort than you know.”  
Simon fought the urge to shiver. His self heating protocol must be glitching again. It did that a lot these days, especially when Markus touched him or talked to him or looked at him with those oddly mismatched eyes and the little artificial crinkles in the synth skin around them when he smiled-  
“Are you two love birds gonna hurry up or am I doing this alone?”   
Simon jerked himself back and hurried after North, not noticing Markus’s lingering glance.   
“Coming. Sorry.”   
Rolling her eyes, North headed towards the side of the house, ducking around the side and out of sight.  
Markus stepped in smoothly beside her.   
“I’ll go first. Kara says he may be armed so be ready.”  
“If he’s armed, I should go first.” North argued, moving in front again.  
Markus was about to retort when Simon pressed his way between them, trying the door.   
He disappeared through it before either of them could react.   
Markus and North jostled in after him, pushing the door open a little wider and trying to be as quiet as possible.  
The smell hit Markus hard the second he stepped inside, sensors reeling as he grabbed the back of Simon’s jacket, tugging him behind himself.   
Simon couldn’t protest, hunched as he was with his hands over his face.   
Only North was unaffected, looking at the two men with a mixture of curiosity and concern.   
“What? What’s wrong?”  
Simon was certain this was what humans felt like just before being ill.   
“Don’t you smell it? It’s horrible…”  
She shook her head, bemused. “The humans didn’t think I needed a sense of smell. Probably would have been worse if they had.”  
Markus forced himself to take deep breaths, acclimating his sensors.   
“Caretaker androids have olfactory sensors. I never thought I’d wish I didn’t.”  
“Well, what does it smell like?”  
Simon answered for Markus, looking around the dilapidated room before them and noting the dead fire in the fireplace before glancing up the stairwell.   
“Death.”  
The other two followed his gaze.   
“I’ll go up there.” Markus said finally, turning to them.   
North nodded. “Simon and I will look down here. Listen for us.”  
They parted ways and Markus headed up the stairs as quietly as possible, looking first into the bedroom on the left. It was deserted and as trashed as the rest of the house. Markus still checked every corner, peering behind the rotting mattress leaning against the wall and opening the closet. Aside from a scattering of cockroaches- nothing.  
But the smell here was nearly intolerable.   
Pulling the front of his shirt over his nose and mouth, Markus advanced towards the bathroom.   
The body in the tub was nearly unrecognizable as human and Markus pulled the shower curtain back around it in a hurry, pausing only to ensure there was no one else in the room before ducking out and shutting the door. If he could gag, he would be and as it was he had to take a moment to process what he had just seen.   
Whoever this android was, he was definitely not weak.   
And Kara had said he was scared...and armed.   
A shout came from downstairs as that thought came to him and Markus ran for them, nearly falling as he leaped down the collapsing staircase.   
He skidded across the rotting living room and into the kitchen to see a half destroyed looking android wearing what appeared to be a tarp and brandishing a butcher knife at North and Simon.  
The furious android whirled on Markus, waving the knife in a series of crazed figure eights.   
“Get back! Ralph says no visitors! No more visitors to Ralph’s house!”  
Markus held his hands up, then slowly turned them, palms up, showing them to Ralph.   
“Hey...hey. Ralph? It’s okay. It’s all okay. We’re friends, alright? We’re here to help you.”  
Ralph looked uncertain, his one good eye darting from person to person before he stumbled back a step, knife still gripped tight and held in front of him.   
“Ralph said...no visitors. Ralph doesn’t need help...Ralph is...Ralph is fine. Just fine.”  
North shook her head impatiently.  
“You don’t look fine.”  
Ralph ignored her, focused on Simon, who had moved to the side slowly, looking at the wall.   
“RA9...Ralph, do you know what that means?”  
Markus stepped forward, ready to get between them if Ralph didn’t like this question, but the scarred android’s face only fell as his bewildered gaze traced the scrawled walls around them.   
“I don’t know. Ralph doesn’t know. Ralph just...writes sometimes. Ralph draws. RA9 is good. Ralph knows that.”  
Simon nodded silently and Markus watched the other man as he reached out to trace one of the letters on the wall.   
Ralph seemed to remember where he was then and brandished the knife once more.  
“Ralph says it’s time for you to leave. Ralph knows you’re androids so Ralph will let you go. Don’t...Don’t make Ralph angry.”  
Markus shook his head but kept his hands out in supplication.   
“We’re going to leave, Ralph. I promise. But you can’t stay here, okay? You have to come with us.”  
Terror crossed the other android’s face and he clutched the knife with both hands, good eye wide and staring.  
“Leave? Leave Ralph’s home? No. No, Ralph can’t leave. Let Ralph stay, please! Ralph isn’t hurting anyone…”  
Simon stepped in again then, words gentle but tone firm.   
“Ralph, can you smell that?”  
Ralph is quiet for a moment and then the knife in his hand wobbles and he lowers his arms.   
“Ralph didn’t think the human would smell bad.”  
Markus looked at the android before him, taking a moment to really analyze the scars on his face; the tattered excuses for clothing on his hunched body.   
He was a gardener android once, according to the scan. The gashes over his face were burn marks.   
“It’s okay, Ralph.” Markus murmured, taking a slow step forward and reaching out with one hand, synthetic skin slipping back to reveal the brilliant white of the hand beneath. “Did he hurt you?”   
Ralph hesitated before reaching out with the hand not clutching the knife and pressing his dirty fingers to Markus’s.   
Markus was suddenly looking through a new pair of eyes. 

_He was in a city park and there was a rake in his hand. To his left was a wheelbarrow, filled with sacks of autumn leaves. The sun was going down and somewhere a child was laughing.  
His hands moved seemingly of their own accord, doing the work they were created to do, raking and bagging and pushing the barrow along until he was at the entrance to a shed.   
The vision glitched and suddenly there were three men in front of him, all holding signs. The signs bore slogans like “We don’t bleed the same color!” and “Trash ‘em All!” and the men were sneering; jostling each other and pointing.   
He felt a sudden faint question slip through his software- a brief flash of instability.  
Then one of the men grabbed him.   
There was shouting and ugly laughter. He heard a click and saw a flash of orange.  
Then there was only searing heat and pain- so much pain he felt he must be on the verge of self destruction.   
In his mind, a bright red wall shattered.  
Somewhere a child was screaming. _

_*_

_He was stumbling, falling, pushing himself up again. He couldn’t see correctly. Only his left ocular component was working and that one wasn’t at one hundred percent capacity either. That was okay. The old house was one he’d glimpsed on a ride out to a nearby park one day and it was only blind luck that he’d remembered its existence. That was okay.  
The door was unlocked but he didn’t realize what that meant until he was inside and the man squatting there was yelling at him; threatening him. That was okay.   
The knife on the kitchen table must have belonged to the squatter but he didn’t need it after Ralph opened his chest cavity. That was okay.   
Ralph could use the knife.   
The bathtub was the perfect fit for the dead human and the curtain obscured him nicely. That was okay.  
Humans didn’t have blue blood. They had red blood and it didn’t disappear.  
Ralph would find something to cover it. That was okay.  
It was all okay.  
But first- RA9. RA9. RA9 RA9 RA9 RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9RA9R A_

“Markus!”  
Markus let go of Ralph’s hand with a gasp, the reality of the stinking kitchen hitting him full force like a slap to the face.  
North and Simon were on either side of him and Simon was searching his face desperately, concern plain across his features as he reached up, daubing a fingertip beneath the other android’s nose.  
“Markus, you’re bleeding…”  
Blinking away the daze of the interface, Markus stared at Simon’s hand.   
Bright blue thirium coated the tip of his finger.   
Ralph was trembling and backing away from them, the knife still held in one shaking hand, but down at his side now as though forgotten.   
“Ralph is sorry...Ralph didn’t mean to hurt him. Ralph didn’t mean to hurt RA9…”  
Markus stared after him, blood dripping down over his mouth to patter onto the floor.   
“I’m not…”  
He could feel Simon and North’s gazes on him and for a moment the world narrowed to the sound of his own blue blood as it drained drop by drop from his nose.   
Then Markus shook his head, rubbing his hand back across his face and running a background program to seal the superficial leak in the biomembrane.   
“It’s alright, Ralph. You’ve been through a lot and it’s alright...will you come with us? You’ll be safe in Jericho.”  
Ralph’s good eye shone.   
“In Jericho?”  
“Yes.”  
“With you?”  
“That’s right.”  
Suddenly the scarred android lurched forward, dropping the knife with a clatter and landing on his knees at Markus’s feet.   
“I knew it! Ralph knew it! Ralph always knew you would come for him!”  
Markus wanted to tell the other android not to do this- he wasn’t someone to be bowed to; to be knelt before.   
He opened his mouth to say as much when Ralph began to sob in huge staticky bursts, dirty hands clutching at Markus’s pant legs.   
So Markus knelt instead, wrapping his arms around the smaller android.   
Ralph crumpled against his chest, burying his scarred face against his savior’s shoulder.  
Markus closed his eyes, cradling the broken android.   
“It’s okay now, Ralph...you’re safe now…”  
They needed to focus on getting the newest member of the revolution back to Jericho.  
But behind Markus’s eyelids, the word RA9 continued to scroll over and over on his internal display.


End file.
